Christmas Nutcracker Embroidery Design, Instant Download

Classic toy nutcracker, the kind you see standing guard on mantlepieces every december. Sage green peaked hat flat on the top with a stiff wide brim, white curly wig that puffs out on both sides beneath it, two round pink cheeks and that carved wooden jaw expression they all have. The red uniform jacket has a clean column of white buttons running straight down the chest in tight little satin rounds, and the cuffs are the same sage green as the hat with that gauntlet flare. Green boots meet a small flat black base platform at the bottom, which grounds the figure and stops it from floating.

Six colours at 837 stitches per inch density, so its on the lighter end for a 6-colour design. Smallest size finishes around 6,000 stitches and the largest at 7.51 inches wide comes in at just under 18,000. The satin button column is what I digitised most carefully because tight repeating satin fills can lose definition at small sizes, but these hold down to 3.51 inches without the buttons blurring into each other. the software I use handles the spacing cleanly in that range, Ive tested it.

Wide and compact rather than tall, so its naturally suited to border and sleeve placement rather than a centred chest motif. A customer messaged saying she put three of em across a christmas table runner hem with tear-away stabiliser on the cotton linen blend, and they spaced evenly with good separation. Thats actually how I imagined this getting used when I was working on it. Stitch a row along the base of a tree skirt, the hem of a holiday dress, or the cuff of a christmas stocking and it works better than one lone centred figure.

Five sizes from 3.51 up to 7.51 inches wide. Use cream, white or red cotton for the cleanest background. Avoid anything busy or printed, the satin buttons and the wig curl need a plain ground to read clearly. Pick tear-away for linen, light cutaway for woven cotton. Hoop snug and keep the fabric flat because the button column will show any hooping slack.